This past Sunday in the late afternoon I visited the Whitney for the very first time to see the Astro Noise exhibit by Laura Poitras on the very top and entire floor of the gallery. It was an exhibit based on government surveillance and increased presence post- 9/11. The exhibit is based off of Poitras’ documentary film, Citizenfour. It was both an interesting and kind of spooky exhibit to walk through and, at times, to be a part of.

The exhibit begins in a large room with a tv screen in the middle, and two different projections on each side. One side is looping footage of close up shots of people staring off in front of them and their reactions. The reactions are supposed to be of the people staring at ground zero. It was almost chilling to sit there and stare these people in the face, and to see the emotions in their eyes. On the other side of the screen was looped footage of interrogation and torture of a man accused of having weapons and explosives in his car. Military men are seen questioning him, their tactics growing more severe as the footage rolls on.

The next part of the exhibit was unique in the way that it was a large dark room, with footage of the night sky and stars projected on the ceiling. For viewing, people could lay on a carpeted raised surface in the middle of the room, as if they were star gazing. An interesting thing about this is how at the end of the exhibit, before you exit, you see that there is a large tv screen of thermal heat footage of everyone who was laying on the platform in the other room. It’s spooky because, at the time, you didn’t realize you were being watched by other people. And, this forces you into the position of “big brother” aka the government that is watching over unsuspecting people. It was a very powerful image to take away from the exhibit.

I’m glad I got the opportunity to visit this exhibit, and it makes me want to investigate Poitras work further on the subject. It’s very interesting to me how she received information about government surveillance by Edward Snowden. Also, being an aspiring documentary filmmaker, I would like to watch her documentary Citizenfour to learn more about her work and the topic.  This kind of topic is very interesting because it has everything to do with our everyday lives as American citizens. I also find it interesting the information that is withheld from us concerning our freedom and civil liberties. It takes a government official to become a traitor to his country just to spread the information kept from the general public. Interesting and scary are two words to sum up what this exhibit evoked from me, and I’m sure others too.